English Lesson - 8 Ways to Say, "I'm busy."

Hi Bob the Canadian here.

Are you ever busy?

Do you ever have a day or a week and when you look at everything that you need to do

you just think to yourself, I'm too busy?

Well in this video I'll look at about 8 more ways that you can say, "I'm busy!", in English.

Hey, Bob the Canadian here welcome to this video.

If this is your first time here don't forget to click the subscribe button below and give

me a thumbs up if this video helps you learn some English.

Hey, so one of the first ways that you can say that you're busy in English is to say,

"I have a lot to do."

So maybe a friend of yours asks if you can come over and help him with a project, and

you could say, "No, I don't think I'm going to be able to because I have a lot to do tonight."

So you don't have to say what you have to do, but you just say, "I have a lot to do."

So a second way to say that you're busy in English is to say, "I have a lot on my plate."

So you know what a plate is.

When you sit down to eat food you put the food on your plate.

So when you say to someone, "I have a lot on my plate."

It means the same thing as saying that you're busy.

So maybe your boss wants you to do an extra job at work and he says, "Here's this extra

job I need you to do."

You could say, "I don't think I'm going to have time.

I'm busy.

I already have a lot on plate."

And hopefully he recognizes that and doesn't give you extra work.

But when you say, "I have a lot on plate.", it's another way to say, "I'm busy."

A third way to say that you're busy is to say, "I have a lot on the go."

So let's say you're looking at your week and you're trying to figure out a time when you

can meet your sister to go see a movie or to go out for dinner, and you could say to

your sister, "I'm not sure I can fit this in because I have a lot on the go."

Which would mean that you already have a lot of other things planned for the week, you

just have so many things on the go you're not sure you can create some spare time to

do something that's more fun and enjoyable.

So another way to say you're busy is to say you have a lot on the go.

So a fourth way to say you're busy and it's similar to the one we just looked at is to

say, "I have a lot going on."

So we just looked at, "I have a lot on the go.", you could also say, "I have a lot going

on."

So when you look at your day and you're trying to figure out if you have time in the day

to have a nap you could decide that you can't have a nap because you have a lot going on

that day.

You have too many things to do to be able to take a nap.

So you have a lot going on.

So a fifth way to communicate to someone that you're busy is to say, "I'm swamped."

This is a little more English slang, but we do say this a lot.

When you just have so many things to do you feel swamped.

You feel like there's just too many and you're not going to get them all done.

So if someone was to say, "Hey do you have time to pick me up from the airport?"

If you're so busy that you can't you could just say, "Look, I'm swamped right now.

I don't have a spare minute in my day.

I don't have time to pick you up from the airport.

I'm too busy."

So, "I'm swamped.", another way to say that you're busy.

So a sixth way to say that you're busy and to actually say that you're too busy is to

say, "I'm overwhelmed."

That you're so busy, you have so many things to do that they are, it's becoming overwhelming.

When you say you're overwhelmed it means that you've kind of lost the ability to get done

the work or the things that you need to get done.

So this is kind of, you know, towards the end of being too busy, when you've taken on

one too many things.

You can feel overwhelmed.

You just have too many things that you have to do.

So I guess this would be the same as saying you're too busy is to say, "I'm overwhelmed."

So a seventh way to say that you're busy is to say, "I'm buried in work.", or "I'm buried

in homework.", or "I'm buried in things to do."

So when you're buried it means that people have put dirt on you and you're underground.

Hopefully that never happens to anybody, but if someone was to ask me, "Hey do you have

time to do one more thing today."

I would say, "Look, I'm buried in work today.

I have a lot of work to do on the flower farm.

I am just buried in work.

I'm not gonna be able to do one more thing."

So another way to say you're too busy is to say that you're buried in work.

An eighth way to say that you're too busy, and this is the second last one, there's actually

gonna be a little bit of a bonus one in a minute, but an eighth way to say you're too

busy is to say you're juggling too many things.

And I'm not sure if you know what juggling is, juggling is when you have three balls

and you, you throw them up in the air.

I'm not going to demonstrate juggling.

Hopefully I can find a picture of it, but if you're juggling too many things it's an

indication that you're busy or that you're too busy.

So when you look at your day, maybe in a normal day you can get about 7 or 8 things done and

you're trying to get about 12 things done, you could say to someone, "Oh I'm so busy.

I'm just juggling too many things today."

And lastly here's a little phrase that we say in English.

When I'm too busy, I feel like my day is just go, go, go.

So we say the word "go" three times in a row.

So if I was to say, "You know last Saturday I was so busy.

It was just go, go, go, all day.", or, "This coming Thursday I have so many things to do.

I have to get up early and it's just gonna be go, go, go, all day."

So that would be just kind of a way to describe a busy day.

It's not the same as saying that you're busy, but if you were to say to someone, "You know,

yesterday was just go, go, go, from the minute I got up until I finally went to bed it was

just go, go, go."

It would mean that you were just really really busy that entire day.

Well, hey, that's a few ways in English to say that you're busy.

Bob the Canadian here.

Learn English with Bob the Canadian.

Don't forget to click the subscribe button below if you enjoyed this video and if you

want to be notified when I make a new one.

Click thumbs up if you liked this video and it helped you learn English and certainly

share this video with a friend.

Leave a comment below or a question and I'm always happy to answer them, but hopefully

this video helped you learn a bit more English.

Bob the Canadian here.

Learn English with Bob the Canadian.

I hope you're having a great day and I'll see you Friday, live stream Friday morning.

8:00 AM Eastern Standard Time.

13:00 GMT.

Look for a little pop up with some more information later this week, but live stream this coming

Friday and again I hope you're having a good day and I hope you have a good week.

Bob the Canadian here.

See you in the next video.